


my heart between your teeth

by jinxfabray



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, VERY background seulrene literally only gets mentioned once, dumb boys with even dumbest feelings, fuckboys au, kinda angsty, they're so dumb i, very background baeksoo, very background seminho idk whats the ship name for kms/kjm/osh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 18:05:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13218081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinxfabray/pseuds/jinxfabray
Summary: jongdae didn't entirely dislike lu han, but he didn't like him enough to miss him now that he's gone either. sure, they used to hook up now and then, and yeah, lu han wasn't terrible to him, and okay, maybe sometimes lu han would come bring him coffee when jongdae had a tiny break in his hectic schedule -- but it's not like they were a thing, and jongdae doesn't miss him. not at all.(except maybe he kind of does)





	my heart between your teeth

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to everyone who held my hand through the painful process of writing this ur all the best
> 
> a quick clarification,, by football i mean soccer in case that was confusing for anyone
> 
> some songs i listened to a lot while writing this:  
> \- fuck was i by jenny owen youngs  
> \- woke up new by the mountain goats  
> \- i want you so bad i can't breathe by ok go  
> \- nearly witches by p!atd  
> \- young god by halsey  
> \- missing you by tyler hilton  
> \- half a heart by 1D  
> \- do you realize?? by the flaming lips

Jongdae sighs again, loudly, and Baekhyun has had enough of this.

“I don’t understand,” he starts, making Jongdae sigh even deeper. Baekhyun takes a deep breath, because his best friend is in pain and he really wants to be patient and understanding but it’s hard because he’s in pain for such stupid reasons. “Like, you could’ve at least tried doing it long distance. You didn’t even give it a shot, you just skipped to the pining as if you had failed already.”

“I don’t know which one of us you’re being so generous with, Baekhyunnie, but I really don’t think it’s physically possible to fuck between continents no matter how long your dick is,” Jongdae replies, and he’s lucky he’s all the way across the room or Baekhyun would have hit him. Hard.

“Clearly that’s not what I meant,” Baekhyun groans.

“Then I have no idea what you could possibly be talking about,” Jongdae says, sitting up on his bed. “There was nothing else to try doing, obviously, I mean. We were just, like, fuck buddies, with emphasis on the fuck.”

Baekhyun is the one sighing now, because it’s been a whole year of dealing with Jongdae and the fifteen thousands layers of denial he’s buried the reality under. Deep down, he’d hoped Lu Han leaving would get him to open his eyes and stop being so dumb about this, but it seems to have had the exact opposite effect. It’s exasperating.

“It’s impossible to help you get over your break up if you won’t even admit it was a break up, you know,” Baekhyun says with as much patience as he can manage to gather, which isn’t a lot but it’s more than Jongdae deserves at this point.

“You have to date someone in order to break up with them,” Jongdae rolls his eyes, dropping back down on the bed. “And me and Lu Han did a lot of things, but we didn’t ever, ever date.”

At this, Baekhyun decides to turn his back on him and go back to his computer. The assignment he’s working on is as frustrating as Jongdae, but at least he can do something to try and save it. Jongdae’s probably a lost cause, judging from how quickly he went back to sighing and staring at his phone, like it’s gonna magically teleport him to England.

Newcastle is approximately 8620 kilometers away from Seoul. It’s a ten hour flight, and Jongdae once read it would take 172 hours if he went on a hot air balloon. Not that he’s been obsessively looking up facts about Newcastle, but the internet is a mysterious place and sometimes he opens up a browser to do homework and then an hour later he finds himself looking up flight prices. It happens to everyone, he’s sure.

It’s not that he misses Lu Han. That would be dumb of him, considering Lu Han most definitely doesn’t miss him -- Jongdae hasn’t called or texted him, but telephones work both ways and Jongdae’s has been really quiet for over ten days now. He hasn’t even contacted him to ask him about his cat, which Jongdae so kindly agreed to adopt when Lu Han realized he couldn’t take the tiny beast with him. It’s fine, Jongdae is only a bit concerned because that level of neglect for his cat out of all things kinda makes him wonder if Lu Han has suffered some sort of terrible accident which has erased his memory or something.

He’s still not gonna text first thoughthough, that would be too close to being clingy and he’s above that, always has been. He tells this to the cat when he gets back to his room, petting his head. He’s not as tiny as he was when Jongdae first met him, which is kind of worrying because that means his little fling with Lu Han went on for way longer than he’d anticipated, but it’s for the best because he was a straight up terror when he was a baby. He’s a lot better behaved now, and he purrs as soon as Jongdae touches him, leaning into his touch.

“I mean, I don’t miss him, but I’m sure you do,” he says, and the cat purrs a bit louder, but Jongdae can tell he’s side eyeing him like he knows the truth. So maybe he misses Lu Han a little, and Jongdae can only hope the cat is the only one who can tell.

 

 

[[  
  
They start off hating each other, or at least Jongdae does. He doesn’t really know Lu Han, but he’s been in his radar for months by the time they first run into each other. He’s heard enough about him to know he’s despicable, and when he finally sets his eyes on Lu Han, he doesn’t just confirm everything he suspected, but he’s also faced with the fact that Lu Han isn’t just terrible, but he’s also ridiculously pretty, and Jongdae hates him even more for it.

He’s got a tiny, innocent face, and when he smiles his eyes crinkle like his soul is made of fireflies or something equally disgusting. It doesn’t match the rest of his persona at all, not when he’s got a stupid snapback put on backwards and an oversized Supreme tank top. Sure, Jongdae is also wearing a snapback but at least he’s wearing his the right way, and if the shirt he’s got on under his hoodie is also a Supreme one then he’ll just have to make sure no one finds out so he can keep on judging Lu Han.

“That was intense,” Seulgi says when Yixing has finally taken Lu Han away and left Jongdae in peace with his friends. “I can’t believe I was here to witness the two biggest fuckboys in the university finally crossing paths -- no offense, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun shrugs like he gets it, and Jongdae is puzzled because he would never, ever think of himself as that, and he’s actually a little bit offended Seulgi thinks of him in such a demeaning way. Lu Han, on the other hand, sure looked like he fit the part, which might have been why he rubbed Jongdae the wrong way.

“He really just came over to say hi and Jongdae looked like an intruder had bursted into his territory,” Jongin laughs, and Jongdae raises his eyebrows at how quickly everyone else starts laughing along.

“I have no idea what any of you are talking about,” Jongdae says, clicking his tongue at his very disrespectful friends as he hops off the table. “I just didn’t like his attitude, that’s all.”

Baekhyun has the nerve to coo at him, getting up from his seat just to ruffle his hair, as if he didn’t know Jongdae spends hours styling it so it looks like he just rolled out of bed.

“That’s alright, the best thing about your slow transformation into our favorite fuckboy is how you didn’t even realize it,” he says, and Jongdae would get mad if Baekhyun hadn’t sounded so fond in his wrong statement.

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jongdae repeats, sounding a little more insecure because maybe he’s missed out on something? An inside joke all his friends are in? He’s got a couple of commitment issues that he’s developed over the past few years, sure, but that doesn’t make him a fuckboy -- he thinks. He’s pretty sure, at least.

“You’ll get it soon,” Baekhyun says patting him on the back, and Jongdae feels weirdly comforted.

It’s like once he’s seen Lu Han, he can’t stop running into him. Apparently, they’ve shared a class for months but Jongdae hadn’t ever seen him before, and they have more friends in common than Jongdae expected. He knew Yixing was super close with Lu Han, but he seems to be very good friends with Minseok too, which is rather annoying since Jongdae likes Minseok a lot and used to enjoy hanging out with him, when he didn’t come with Lu Han attached to the hip like he does nowadays.

It’s dislike at first sight, but then one day, Jongdae’s having lunch by himself at the cafeteria when Lu Han shows up -- by himself. He drops his tray next to Jongdae’s without asking, and Jongdae can tell this is gonna be bad.

“Hey,” Lu Han says.

For a moment, a very tiny moment, Jongdae considers giving him a chance. He’s friends with all his friends, he can’t be so bad, and maybe a big part of why Jongdae’s been so reticent about him has to do with how stupidly pretty he is and how much he hates boys with faces so perfect they can’t possibly not know everyone’s a little bit in love with them. When Lu Han smiles, he smiles back, with all this in mind.

“Hi,” he replies politely.

“Your lunch looks gross,” Lu Han says, eyeing Jongdae’s food and making him regret having considered giving him a shot in a record time of 0.5 seconds. Amazing. He’s got his own tupper rather than cafeteria food, and Jongdae hates to admit it does smell incredible when he opens it up. “Why do you even eat cafeteria food? It’s dreadful.”

“Yeah, I got that the first time you said it,” Jongdae rolls his eyes, stabbing his lunch with a little more strength than necessary. “But it’s free if you live here, and I’m broke enough as it is to turn down free food.”

“Here,” Lu Han says, dumping some of his food on the empty half of Jongdae’s plate. “Have some of mine, it’ll help you getting rid of the bad taste all that maths leaves behind.”

He’s pretty even when he’s scowling and Jongdae wants to kick him for it. He’d kind of forgotten the reason they’re both having lunch in the middle of the afternoon is that they both have statistical mechanics during normal lunch hours. It makes him wonder what exactly Lu Han is majoring in, since it’s odd that he’s only shared this particular one with Jongdae and none of the other physics ones, but he doesn’t care enough to ask.

“Why are you even taking that class if you don’t like maths,” Jongdae mutters, because he doesn’t actually want to ask him anything but he gets a bit defensive over things like this, despite himself.

“Can’t know I don’t like something if I haven’t tried it yet, you know,” Lu Han shrugs.

“Didn’t you have to take the requirements to get into this class? Weren’t those enough to help you figure it out?” Jongdae asks, his curiosity getting the best of him. He didn’t mean to engage Lu Han in a conversation but now he’s asking questions and he doesn’t quite know how to make himself stop.

“Eh, I promised the teacher I’d seen the important stuff in high school,” Lu Han says, and Jongdae wants to scream. Of course he sweet talked his way into class, he probably sweet talks his way into anything and everything he does during his day. “You’re really into that nerdy stuff, aren’t you? Because it must take being real brainy to stay awake through those classes.”

There’s only so much Jongdae can take from someone who smells like they accidentally bathed in Axe rather than spraying it like normal human beings, but he manages to take a deep breath and hold back because again, Lu Han is friends with all his friends.

“Thanks for the food,” Jongdae says as he gets to his feet, rather regretfully but he has to say it because he did actually end up eating what Lu Han had so graciously dumped on his plate and it had indeed been way better than cafeteria food.

“See you around,” Lu Han grins that dashing, terrible smile of his, watching Jongdae walk away from him like they just had a normal, friendly conversation.

It doesn’t make any sense, why Lu Han is even trying to approach Jongdae when clearly he doesn’t like him or else he wouldn’t tease him like that. Jongdae’s doing his best not to think about it as he walks back to his dorm, when suddenly he remembers that conversation with Seulgi and Jongin and the whole fuckboy thing. Maybe he really has been giving off that vibe. The truth is he’s had a couple of flings that didn’t last long and didn’t end in a very graceful manner, mostly because Jongdae had suddenly panicked and decided to end all communication out of nowhere, and now that he thinks about it, he sees why it could be making him look -- like that. Like someone Lu Han, an actual, real life fuckboy, is interested in approaching. It fills him with horror and he has to stop in the middle of the hallway to dramatically clutch at his chest because if Lu Han is trying to get into his pants, if Lu Han is the kind of person he’s come to attract, then he has some serious thinking to do about the state of his life. He closes his bedroom door and drops down on his bed, his head starting to ache from all this thinking.

It’s not that he doesn’t think Lu Han is attractive, because obviously he is, but Jongdae isn’t into that kind of person. He’s not sure which kind of person he’s into, but it’s definitely not someone like Lu Han. People as pretty as him, they’re too aware of their own beauty and it makes them dangerous. Jongdae’s had enough of dangerous, he doesn’t want to take anymore risks.

“That’s possibly the dumbest thing I’ve heard you say, and you’ve been saying a lot of really dumb stuff lately,” Baekhyun kindly comments.

Jongdae wasn’t entirely aware he was thinking out loud, so it startles him a little.

“Like, what does that even mean? You’re just gonna go out with ugly people so you can be sure they won’t break your heart?” Baekhyun goes on, raising an eyebrow at him.

“That’s not where I was going with that,” Jongdae scowls, though he does realize Baekhyun is right and it wasn’t a particularly bright track of thought. “The important part was that I’m not into Lu Han and I wish he would leave me alone. I’m still working on the rest.”

“Sure,” Baekhyun concedes too easily, suspiciously so. He’s turned his back on Jongdae and he’s already deep in some book again, so Jongdae decides not to question him any further. It’s probably for the best.

The fact that Baekhyun’s been in a serious relationship for a thousand and five years doesn’t qualify him to be constantly judging everyone else’s romantic situations, as far as Jongdae’s concerned, which is why he never takes him seriously. It would be easy for everyone if they could all date people as emotionally stable as Kyungsoo, but Jongdae’s never met anyone else like him, so Baekhyun should stick to making out with his tiny, mature boyfriend, and leave him alone. Like Lu Han. Everyone should leave Jongdae and his emotional issues alone, as a matter of fact.

“I’m not even talking about them, you’re the one who keeps whining out loud about it,” Baekhyun laughs, turning back around to look at Jongdae, who’s buried his face in his pillow. “Also, if you were that into Kyungsoo, you should’ve said something before I made him fall in love with me.”

“Oh, you mean when we were five? Yeah, I wasn’t exactly thinking about getting a boyfriend back then.” Now Jongdae is the one rolling his eyes, and Baekhyun laughs even harder.

He’s not into Kyungsoo, even if he does envy Baekhyun for dating someone who’s so trustworthy and all that. They’ve all been friends since like, birth, and Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were always obviously made for each other, right from the start. Jongdae’s happy for them. He just wishes he could meet someone who would do like Kyungsoo did for Baekhyun, and teach him how to tame the constant chaos his feelings are constantly in.

Instead, he gets Lu Han coming to sit with him for lunch twice a week and proceeding to do what Jongdae thinks might be insulting him, but he’s not always sure.

“Nice shoes,” he says the first time Jongdae walks into the cafeteria later than him.

Lu Han is already sitting at Jongdae’s usual table, and he’s not gonna change his routine just because some annoying boy keeps following him around, so he grabs his tray and goes sit next to Lu Han. He realizes it looks like he actually wants to sit with Lu Han, but that’s definitely not what’s happening, at all, even if Lu Han seems to believe that judging from how he’s grinning at him.

It takes Lu Han exactly thirty five seconds to add a comment about his own shoes and something dumb like how they’re better than Jongdae’s because they help him run faster or something along those lines. It’s not exactly that, but Jongdae’s come to filter out the things Lu Han says when he’s acting like he’s a competitive five year old, so he doesn’t really hear it, he just rolls his eyes automatically.

Every single conversation goes the same way, and Jongdae doesn’t know why he keeps putting himself through it when all Lu Han does is annoy him and bring out his petty side, but something in him won’t let him walk away when he sees him coming his way. His feet feel heavy, like gravity gets stronger when Lu Han’s around.

After a particularly lame party at which their weird back-and-forth goes on for longer than anyone else can stand, Baekhyun comes up to him with a suggestion to fix their little problem, and ruins everything with five simple words.

“You should fuck it out,” he says.

]]

 

  
Someone knocks on Jongdae’s door and he nearly falls from his bed. He should’ve thought twice about adopting a cat when there’s a clear no pets allowed rule in the dorms, because it’s brought him a lot of moments of complete panic. However, having a cat around has also comforted him incredibly -- not that he needed it, since nothing is wrong in his life and there is no hole in his heart that he’s trying to cover up by hugging the cat tightly to his chest. But still, it’s nice.

He puts the cat in the bathroom and shushes him before opening the door, but it’s only Minseok so he hurries to open the door again, because the cat really hates being locked up.

“Hello Jongdae,” Minseok greets him, sitting down on his bed and scratching the cat behind his ears. “Hi, cat,” he says, watching him purr and lean into his touch.

“You scared us,” Jongdae says, sitting back down on his spot and picking up the book he’d dropped.

“Sorry, I keep forgetting he lives with you now,” Minseok says. “How are you guys holding up? Does he miss Han a lot?”

“How would I know, he’s a cat, he doesn’t speak,” Jongdae replies, immediately realizing how defensive he just sounded. “He seems to be fine, I bet Lu Han didn’t even pay that much attention to him anyway. I’m a much better owner than he ever was.”

It’s a blatant lie and he knows it, because he’s seen with his own eyes how much Lu Han loved his cat, but his knee jerk reaction to anyone mentioning Lu Han is to say something mean about him as fast as he can, just so they all remember exactly what kind of relationship they had.

“Sure,” Minseok says, clearly amused. He’s clearly not here to discuss Jongdae’s constant state of denial though, since he drops it straight away. “Baekhyun isn’t here?” he asks a little too casually.

“He’s with Kyungsoo, so if it’s Sehun you wanna talk about, go for it,” Jongdae says with a knowing smile, and Minseok laughs looking down at the cat, dropping all pretenses of nonchalance.

“He’s driving me crazy,” Minseok laughs, too fond for Jongdae to handle. “But in a good way? I still think we should keep it lowkey until we figure out what exactly it is we’re doing, but yeah. Anyway, it’s not really Sehun I came to talk to you about.”

Jongdae raises an eyebrow, because it sure sounded like Minseok had a lot more to say about Sehun.

“It’s about, uh,” Minseok pauses, and for a second, Jongdae’s heart beats really hard. It isn’t about Lu Han. Minseok didn’t come here to tell him he’s been talking to Lu Han, and that he’s said he misses Jongdae, because that is just not realistic. Minseok hasn’t seen Lu Han in videochats wearing Jongdae’s light blue sweater that he can’t find anywhere. It isn’t about Lu Han. “It’s about Junmyeon.”

Jongdae’s sweater is probably somewhere else, since even if this is about Jongdae’s real ex, he knows for a fact Junmyeon doesn’t have it because it’s been a whole three years since that ended.

“What about Junmyeon?” Jongdae says, intrigued, definitely not trying to cover up the disappointment at this not being about Lu Han. Whatever Minseok has to say about Junmyeon is probably gonna be enough to distract him from thinking about Lu Han anyway, he’s sure, Minseok’s good at doing that.

Jongdae’s known Minseok since forever, and for the longest time he thought Minseok’s love life was as dull as it could possibly be. Back when they were kids living next to each other, Minseok spent most his time playing videogames in his room, and when they met again in college, it took Jongdae an entire year to spot the differences.

(Granted, Jongdae spent most of his first year locked in his own room doing homework or being tutored by Junmyeon, so it would’ve been hard for him to realize Minseok was far from being a hermit.)

Even by the end of his first year, when Baekhyun finally convinced Jongdae letting loose and relaxing a little would make studying easier and they started crashing every party they could find, they never ran into Minseok at any sort of social gathering. Sometimes, Baekhyun would do his usual routine of getting a little too drunk and calling for Kyungsoo to come get him a little too early, and Jongdae regretted not having pushed Minseok a little more so he wouldn’t be left alone so soon.

Once, being a little drunk himself, he’d actually gone knock on Minseok’s door in case he was awake and wanted to hang out because Jongdae wasn’t quite ready to sleep yet. A cute stranger in their underwear had opened up, kindly informing him Minseok was indeed asleep and did Jongdae need them to wake him up. It had been so puzzling Jongdae hadn’t managed to say anything back, his mind stuck on trying to process the fact that Minseok apparently knew people Jongdae had never seen before and he was sleeping with them? Potential strangers? It didn’t compute.

So Minseok’s love life remained a mystery, but Jongdae had questioned him annoyingly about his sex life instead, and he’d been slightly mind blown. Turns out, some people didn’t need to attend every single party to get laid, and Minseok was way too good at keeping things lowkey, so even after finding out he wasn’t as much of a chaste monk as Jongdae had made him out to be, he still kept surprising him with who ended up in his bed.

Sehun had been very shocking, especially because Jongdae had found out by walking in on them, which he’s still trying to recover from, and also because it had been going on for months by the time he found out -- and even now, apparently, it’s still a thing. Jongdae does his best not to point that out whenever they talk about it, because like himself, Minseok seems to be slightly allergic to feelings, but it has been at least five months of them hooking up regularly. There’s probably something there, but whenever Jongdae so much as attempts to take the conversation there, Minseok brings up Lu Han and makes Jongdae regret ever opening his mouth at all.

“I think he might be hitting on me?” Minseok says, rubbing at the back of his neck as he looks up to Jongdae. “He’s so friendly it’s hard to tell, but ever since we were TAs together in that summer course we’ve been texting and I get the feeling he’s trying to woo me in like, a ridiculously formal way.”

“That does sound like Junmyeon,” Jongdae concedes. He remembers Junmyeon asking him out in his first year, how serious he’d been about the whole thing, how special it had made him feel. He’d been so disappointed later though, seeing Jongdae slowly transform from the uptight boy he’d liked so much into someone who wasn’t above wearing socks and sandals, Jongdae fears if he’s fallen for Minseok’s professional teacher pose he’s just gonna go through a repeat of that when he finds out the mess Minseok’s personal life is. “What would you do if he was, though? I don’t think he’d be into -- whatever it is you’re into, like, he’s more of a stable relationship kinda guy.”

“I could be into that,” Minseok shrugs.

He says it so easily, like making promises is simple, like it doesn’t scare him to death to know someone out there might be willing to trust him to look after their heart.

“What about Sehun?” Jongdae asks, hugging his knees to his chest. This conversation isn’t about him, not even in the slightest, so he doesn’t know why he’s the one feeling exposed here.

“I would have to figure that out first, yeah,” Minseok thinks out loud, leaning back on Jongdae’s bed. “But I think it might actually work out, all of it. If Junmyeon really is trying to hit on me and not just, subtly ask how his favorite ex is doing.”

Minseok gives him a lopsided smile, and Jongdae cackles.

“Yeah, that’s definitely not what’s happening,” Jongdae says, still laughing hard. Minseok was right there to watch it all unravel, even if he didn’t know Junmyeon well at the time, but they both know whatever fond memories Junmyeon had of his time with Jongdae, they were wiped clean a long time ago.

“Come on, let’s get something to eat,” Minseok says, setting the cat on the table and getting to his feet with a little tap on Jongdae’s thigh to get him to come along. “I’ll buy you chicken for not telling me I’m crazy to think me and Junmyeon /and/ Sehun could work out.”

“Gotta dream big, hyung,” Jongdae laughs, patting the cat before they leave. “Stranger things have happened,” he adds as he waves the cat goodbye, and he knows what the adorable ball of fur is thinking. He’s witnessed stranger things -- like his owner and Jongdae finally, finally hooking up that first time.

 

 

[[

Baekhyun’s ideas are always bad. They were bad when they were seven, and they’re even worse at nineteen, and Jongdae should know that by now but he keeps trusting him and getting himself into messy situations. This time, the idea is so profoundly terrible, even Jongade has his doubts.

But the thing is, Jongdae’s had a very bad day and he’s staring at his bike with its flat tire when Lu Han pulls over in his stupidly nice car, honking at him.

“Need a ride?” Lu Han asks, rolling down the window and blinding him with that stupid grin he puts on when he knows he’s got the upper hand, and Jongdae can see how it might make him feel better if he could just wipe it off his face. Kissing it off his face sounds like a reasonable second choice.

“Yeah, but I can’t -- I don’t know what to do with my bike,” Jongdae asks, pointing at it helplessly.

“We can put it in the trunk or like, in the backseat,” Lu Han says, and Jongdae didn’t see him getting out of the car but he’s already standing next to him, eyeing the bike like he’s doing calculations to figure out how to make it fit.

Jongdae watches him lift it after he’s unchained it, graciously managing to open the car door while holding the bike over his shoulder and then struggling to make it fit in the backseat. It’s a tiny bike and a very big car, but it’s still a tight fit, and Jongdae can see the pain in Lu Han’s eyes when he realizes his seats aren’t gonna make it out of this unscathed, but he doesn’t mention it. He’s being so selflessly nice and he hasn’t made a single joke so far, Jongdae’s brain can’t process any of this.

They’re already driving down the street when Jongdae realizes he has no idea why Lu Han just randomly happened to stop by his gym which is quite far from campus right when he needed him.

“Are you stalking me?” Jongdae asks, interrupting Lu Han who was way more focused on changing songs than on driving.

“What,” Lu Han splutters, clearly taken aback. “No, I was -- I was in the neighborhood?” he offers weakly, and Jongdae frowns until he gives in. “I go to your same gym.”

“I’ve never seen you here,” Jongdae says, squinting like he’s gonna see through Lu Han and figure out why exactly he would be stalking him, if that’s what he was doing.

“I box, and we train until ten,” Lu Han starts, nervously tapping his fingers on the wheel. “I saw you once coming in and figured you left a little later so I kind of, waited for you? In case you needed help.”

It’s unconvincing, but Jongdae had been so worried about his bike and Lu Han suddenly showing up and everything that he hadn’t actually taken the time to look at Lu Han. Now that he’s mentioned he was training though, Jongdae can’t stop noticing his arms in the tank top he’s wearing. Clearly he’s fresh out of the showers because he smells like shampoo and his hair is dripping but not in a gross, sweaty way, and Jongdae -- Jongdae thinks maybe Baekhyun had a good idea, this time.

To save him from that track of thought, his stomach interrupts the moment by growling rather loudly. Lu Han laughs, and Jongdae’s too busy being embarrassed to catch the relief in it.

“We could get dinner, if you wanted,” Lu Han offers. “I mean, since you’re here already, and my place is closer than the dorms, I’m sure I have something we can unfreeze or whatever.”

“Uh,” Jongdae’s first instinct is to say no, but the truth is, he doesn’t think he has anything but old ramen to heat up back at the dorms, and everything will be closed by the time he gets home, so. “If you don’t mind? Since I’m here already, right?”

“Right,” Lu Han smiles. Jongdae isn’t sure at which point Lu Han stopped being terrible to him and started being kind and so genuinely excited to hang out with him, but he doesn’t mind it at all.

Lu Han lives in a tall building, which Jongdae doesn’t recognize until they’re in the elevator and it suddenly hits him that Yixing lives there too. For a second, he’s worried they might be roommates and he’s somehow not noticed -- but there’s nothing to be worried about, since it’s not like Jongdae’s planning on anything happening besides them eating. If he’s relieved when Lu Han stops in front of a door that’s definitely not Yixing’s, it’s because he didn’t want to drop by unannounced where there might be someone else getting ready for bed, nothing more.

He’s about to ask why Lu Han’s so cautious about opening the door when he spots the yellow ball of fur stuck to the other side of it.

“He always runs to the door when he hears me and sticks his nose to it,” Lu Han explains, grabbing the cat and scratching the top of his head with so much love that Jongdae melts a little inside.

“That’s a really cute cat,” Jongdae says, standing by the door while he watches Lu Han press his nose against the cat’s, completely absorbed in it. “What’s his name?”

“Oh, he doesn’t have a name,” Lu Han shrugs, finally putting the cat back down and taking a step back to take off his shoes and leave them by the door. The cat instantly goes rub himself all over Jongdae’s legs until he picks him up. “He wouldn’t respond to anything, so.”

“Sure, that makes sense,” Jongdae says, too busy making cute faces at the cat to properly roll his eyes like he would do under different circumstances.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Lu Han indicates as he walks away. “I’ll go check what we can eat.”

Contrary to what Jongdae expects, Lu Han actually ends up putting together a pretty nice meal. His place is in much better conditions than Jongdae would have thought, but his expectations for Lu Han are always so low they’re not particularly hard to exceed. It’s clean and even kind of decorated, though there’s mostly old football trophies written in chinese, and a couple of pictures of him with his family. Lu Han tells him about them, about his place back at home in Beijing, and Jongdae talks about his brother because it’s the most he can say about his family without feeling like he’s opening up old wounds.

It’s nice. For the entire duration of the meal, it feels like they could really get along, if Lu Han was always like this. Like they could be friends, or who knows what else, and that’s what drives Jongdae to linger by the door, taking longer than necessary to put on his shoes. Baekhyun’s advice was stupid, but right now, standing so close to Lu Han after he’s been so good to him, he realizes he’s been wanting to kiss him for a long time and holding back because it felt like it was for all the wrong reasons.

There’s nothing stopping him now, no more feeling like it’s out of spite. He just plainly likes Lu Han’s lips and wants to attach himself to them, and maybe he wouldn’t mind forcing him to make him breakfast and tell him more about his grandma’s funny stories. It’s been a very long time since Jongdae’s let himself get close with someone, and he’s not very keen on exploring why, but when Lu Han finally catches on and leans in to kiss him, he thinks he might be willing to try this time.

It ends before it’s even started, because the next morning Jongdae wakes up and hears Yixing in Lu Han’s kitchen. They’re not even trying to be quiet because they’re speaking very fast in chinese, but Jongdae’s skills are enough for him to get the general gist of the conversation.

Yixing seems to think Lu Han puncturing the tires of his bike to get him to accept a ride was a bit too much, and frankly, so does Jongdae. In the twenty minutes it takes Lu Han to get Yixing to go back to his place and promise to never, ever tell Jongdae about that, Jongdae makes a list of pros and cons and reaches a final veredict. Lu Han’s still an asshole and he’s dumb for having considered trusting him. He probably thinks Jongdae is, like his friends had so kindly informed him, a fuckboy, and his intentions were evidently to get into Jongdae’s pants and nothing else. However, the sex was really good, and Jongdae doesn’t think any of them would mind doing it again, so maybe -- maybe it’s time he embraces his reputation.

]]

 

 

Unlike Jongdae’s high school friends, who are mostly married or in committed relationships, his college friends don’t show any signs of settling down. It makes things easier, when they all go out, that they’re not all sitting on someone’s lap and laughing into the crook of their neck.

Still, every now and then Jongdae sees one of them finally make a move, or he hangs out with Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, and for a tiny instant he feels like something is missing.

He doesn’t miss Lu Han.

He doesn’t, he’s never missed him, he just sometimes wishes so fucking badly he was here, and he could blame it on not wanting to be alone but the truth is he’s been turning down people consistently since he left because he’s not ready to let anyone come and try to fill the hole Lu Han left behind. It’s just a little hole, almost like a buttonhole or maybe even smaller, but it’s Lu Han shaped and it’s unexpected because Jongdae didn’t realize he was carving a place for himself inside Jongdae’s heart until he left and it suddenly felt empty.

Things weren’t so great before Lu Han. It had been a long time since Jongdae had kissed anyone without it being a matter of teeth knocking against each other, since he hadn’t slept with someone without it feeling a little bit tragic, a lot like desperation. He hadn’t wanted to give Lu Han much of a chance, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes he managed to slip through the tiny cracks in the walls Jongdae so carefully put up. Lu Han was more persistent than Jongdae could have ever expected, and now he’s on the other side of the world and all Jongdae has left are questions about how and when exactly he did this to him, whatever this is.

It isn’t love, because he’s too smart to fall in love, and he says so to Junmyeon when he asks him how he’s facing his heartbreak.

“I never liked him, but you seemed to be happy around him,” Junmyeon shrugs like he didn’t hear him just now, when he insisted it wasn’t more than a fling. “Happier than you were with me, at least.”

That makes Jongdae chuckle, and it scares him a little how rare his laughter sounds to his own ears. He hasn’t been on the best of moods lately, he figures.

“Don’t try to pin that catastrophe of a relationship on me, you’re the one who was constantly unsatisfied because I wasn’t what you had imagined,” he jokes, but it’s a little deeper than he intended and even after all these years it still kind of itches, like an old wound in bad weather. “Why are we even talking about Lu Han though, I thought you were here to ask me how to seduce my best friend.”

“I can almost hear Baekhyun in the distance whining about how he thought he was your best friend,” Junmyeon laughs, clearly relieved Jongdae changed the topic so fast. “But I just -- I guess that is what I wanted to ask, in a way.”

It’s kinda cute, seeing Junmyeon all flustered about someone again, and Jongdae’s glad they’ve reached this point where they can talk about this stuff without it being weird. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him about Minseok and Sehun, not when Junmyeon is so convinced Minseok is the epitome of sanctity and responsible, grown up behavior, even though he really should. Junmyeon keeps doing this thing where he convinces himself that whoever his heart is set on is the purest soul he’ll ever come across, and Jongdae’s worried his standard is too high for anyone to ever reach, but maybe that’s just because it hurt quite a bit to realize he fell short of Junmyeon’s expectations of him.

Disappointing people by being himself is still something he’s not very good at accepting as inevitable.

 

 

  
[[

It’s not how Jongdae expects it to go, but he’s never done something like this so he guesses Lu Han probably knows best how to work this whole fuckbuddies thing. He assumes that’s what they are doing after the third time Lu Han replies to his ten pm text asking if he’s bored by dropping by his room and kicking Baekhyun out so they can make out in his bed. It’s clearly not a touch and go situation, since it keeps happening, and it’s nothing serious because they barely ever talk and Lu Han’s not that kind of guy, so fuckbuddies sounds about right.

Still, sometimes Lu Han does things that catch Jongdae off guard, like being outside the classroom when Jongdae’s last lesson ends, waiting for him with coffee and food, or inviting him over for breakfast before early classes and then actually proceeding to make him breakfast rather than pushing him onto the bed. It probably doesn’t mean anything, and Jongdae knows Lu Han doesn’t have that many friends around here, so he must be lonely and it’s not like Jongdae has anything better to do with his time, so he doesn’t mind.

It does make for some ridiculous misunderstandings, and when Jongdae sees the way Junmyeon’s watching him when he walks into the classroom, he can tell this is one of them. It’s brilliant, really, because having his ex as his TA wasn’t awkward enough already so him catching Jongdae while he was trying to unglue himself from Lu Han’s lips three minutes before giving a big presentation is exactly what was missing to make it truly uncomfortable for everyone.

Junmyeon’s professional enough to avoid saying anything during the class, and Jongdae does his best to avoid eye contact during his presentation but he knows it won’t last long. He almost makes it out the door before Junmyeon catches him, but he’s faster and it’s not like Jongdae can exactly run away without looking like he’s gone mad. Junmyeon drops the hand he’d put on Jongdae’s elbow to stop him like his skin is burning him, and Jongdae flinches a little internally.

“Do you have a second?” Junmyeon asks him, still with his very professional TA smile on his face.

“Sure,” Jongdae sighs. He follows Junmyeon out into the hallway, and he’s definitely not even slightly disappointed when he doesn’t find Lu Han waiting for him. He literally walked him to class an hour and a half away, of course he’s not here, he has a life and it doesn’t consist of stalking his fuckbuddy, thank god. It’s just that it would’ve helped him escape Junmyeon if he’d been here, that’s all.

Junmyeon walks him outside the building, and Jongdae doesn’t miss how his face falls even further when he sees him taking the chance to pull out a cigarette.

“So you and that exchange kid seem to be getting on,” Junmyeon starts saying, and Jongdae wishes he didn’t feel so much like a rebellious teenage kid getting chastised by his dad when Junmyeon’s barely a bit older than him and has no right to any of this. He knows he’s not helping at all, smoking in front of him and acting like he’s fourteen and angry, but Junmyeon brings this out in him ever since the break up. “He’s not -- I don’t think he’s a good influence, you know.”

“Jesus, Junmyeon, I’m not eighteen anymore, I don’t think I should be worrying about influences by now,” Jongdae laughs. “Plus he doesn’t really have much time to influence me, we’re not exactly hanging out to chat a lot, you know.”

Junmyeon grimaces, and Jongdae is too tired for this.

“You did well on your presentation, you know, you’re really doing great in class,” Junmyeon says, and it sounds like he’s changing the topic but Jongdae knows he isn’t. It’s all part of the bigger picture, of Junmyeon being worried always about Jongdae wasting his potential, of Jongdae not believing he has anything to waste. “I don’t mean to meddle in your life, especially now I know I have no place doing that but I worry about you.”

Junmyeon means well. He’s always meant well. Jongdae knows it, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult. Jongdae’s mom also means well every time she calls and asks him the kind of questions that leave him feeling a terrible void inside him. The music teacher in his last year of high school who kindly refused to write him a letter of recommendation because some things you need to be born with and Jongdae just didn’t have it in him to pursue a musical career, he meant well. Junmyeon meant well when he decided Jongdae was too immature for their relationship, and he was probably right, but maybe Jongdae is still too immature to accept constructive criticism. Or maybe Junmyeon should find someone more mature to worry about, it would probably cause him less headaches.

Jongdae opens his mouth to say so, but he’s interrupted by someone calling his name. His heart doesn’t skip a beat because Lu Han is actually here again, even if he’d just dropped him off, but because he’s saved him from a confrontation he didn’t really want to have.

“Sorry I’m late,” Lu Han says, putting his hands on his knees and breathing heavily like he just ran all the way here, which makes no sense because Jongdae wasn’t waiting for him so how could he be late? He’s probably picked up on the tense atmosphere and decided to pretend he’s picking Jongdae up to save him -- sometimes, he can be nice enough that Jongdae feels even fond of him. “Sorry, did I interrupt?” he asks staring at Junmyeon like he’s the one who materialized out of thin air.

Junmyeon’s raised eyebrow is hilarious, and Jongdae has to really focus to keep himself from laughing at his face.

“No, it’s fine,” Jongdae says, still grinning suspiciously wide. Lu Han smiles back, and something in Jongdae’s heart feels warmer for some reason. He should see a doctor about it. “You wanna go? We can go.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Lu Han nods enthusiastically, and reaches out to grab Jongdae’s hand. Huh. It makes Junmyeon frown, so Jongdae goes along with it.

To Lu Han’s credit, he actually waits until they’re in the parking lot to ask questions. Jongdae guesses they’ve been seeing each other way more often than he’s realized, because Lu Han didn’t even have to ask him to know he didn’t have any more classes -- or maybe he’s just expecting Jongdae to skip classes just because he’s around. Either way, Jongdae doesn’t hesitate to get into his car, assuming they’re going to Lu Han’s.

“Are you still friends with Junmyeon?” Lu Han asks, starting the car.

“Not really,” Jongdae shrugs, running his fingers through his hair and side eyeing him. Lu Han’s staring straight ahead, more focused on the road than necessary considering they’re still in the very empty uni’s parking lot.

“He doesn’t like me, does he?” he asks after a pause.

“Not at all,” Jongdae laughs, and Lu Han laughing along makes him relieved, for some reason. “He thinks you’re a bad influence on me,” he adds, just to make him laugh a bit harder.

“God,” Lu Han laughs, turning to look at Jongdae when he stops at a red light. His eyes sparkle, and Jongdae thinks back to Junmyeon so heavily implying he was doing too well in life to be wasting his time on someone like Lu Han. He really isn’t, because they’re only hooking up and all that, but even if he was, he’s pretty sure Lu Han might be more deserving of his time than a lot of people in his life right now. “I hardly think I’m influencing you in any way, since all I’ve wanted to talk you into doing was to quit smoking, and clearly that hasn’t worked out.”

“I can’t do that, it’s part of my aesthetic,” Jongdae shrugs. Lu Han looks a tad disappointed, like he actually cares enough about what Jongdae does to his lungs to get mad about it. “You should’ve said that to Junmyeon so he’d have realized I’m the bad influence here.”

“Are you now?” Lu Han laughs again, but he suppresses it when Jongdae gives him a look, because he was being serious, for once.

Jongdae looks out the window, leaning against the door. He shouldn’t let Junmyeon’s dumb expectations of him mess with his head like this, not anymore at least, but there’s enough history between them that he still has quite the hold on him. Junmyeon thought Jongdae had been right about choosing a serious major and planning a real future for himself, instead of sticking to his silly teenage dreams. Junmyeon thought Jongdae had a lot of potential to become a businessman, and he’d been slightly disappointed when Jongdae had started taking more artistic classes, and then he’d been hugely disappointed when Jongdae had started skipping classes altogether to hang out with Baekhyun on the roof of their dorm, smoking and thinking about how much they hated what they were becoming.

Lu Han’s never asked him about his major, and now that Jongdae thinks about it, he has no idea what Lu Han does.

“Why are you here?” He asks, and it’s so out of nowhere Lu Han startles. “I mean, like, in Korea, you’re on a scholarship or something, right?”

“Exchange program,” Lu Han nods, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. “Football team and all that.”

“Oh,” Jongdae says, frowning. He didn’t even know Lu Han played, though now that he thinks about it, it makes a lot of sense, he remembers vaguely trophies and posters in his apartment that should’ve been an obvious indication, had Jongdae been less busy whenever he was around. “But you still go to classes and stuff, right?” he asks, mentally slapping himself for asking something so lame. It makes Lu Han laugh a little though, and Jongdae seriously needs to stop counting every time he makes that happen as tiny victories in his head.

“Technically, yes,” Lu Han says, glancing at him. He does that a lot, like he misses seeing Jongdae’s face when he has to keep his eyes on the road for too long. Like he’s checking Jongdae’s still there, maybe. “I’m majoring in computer sciences and all the classes are super basic, so I just sort of signed up for the ones that didn’t have mandatory assistance and I show up for the exams,” he says casually, like that’s a normal thing to do. “I’ve been playing around with codes since I had access to a computer, and no fifty year old dude can possibly know more about C+ than I do.”

“How humble,” Jongdae laughs, but he gets it. He’d never imagined Lu Han as someone who was into something as nerdy as coding, but he makes it sound cool in that unaffected way of his that Jongdae hates so much.

“I know, I just don’t want you to be too overwhelmed by how amazing I am,” Lu Han laughs, crinkling his eyes. Jongdae’s mind betrays him and tells him it counts double.

“Oh, you really don’t need to worry about that,” Jongdae says. “I mean, I guess I am kind of impressed that you can study, box, play football, and still find enough time in your schedule to stalk me and all that.”

“I’d always make time to stalk you, no matter what,” Lu Han teases, putting a hand on his chest. They’re almost at his place, and Jongdae watches him actually pay attention to his driving when he squeezes his car into his tiny parking space. “What about you?” he asks once they’re out of the car, and he’s looking for his keys which he can never, ever find easily.

“I don’t know yet,” Jongdae surprises himself, answering more truthfully than he usually does. “I was originally gonna do some sort of engineering, but I’m not so sure anymore. I like the more theoretical physics stuff way better than like, thinking about practical, useful things.”

“Huh,” Lu Han replies, and Jongdae wouldn’t admit it but it makes him a bit mad that he just randomly opened up and all Lu Han had to say about it was a noncommittal hum. They’re in the elevator already when he talks again, saying, “I can’t imagine you as any of those things, but I have seen you get all excited about weird stuff in class no one else understands, so I guess it makes sense. You’re the kind of person who would be great at whatever you set your mind to, I think.”

Huh.

Jongdae stares at him while Lu Han stares at the buttons and the ride to the fourth floor lasts approximately an entire three days.

“Thanks?” Jongdae manages to say when the door opens up, and Lu Han gives him the smallest of smiles.

“Sure,” he says. “What about sports, you do sports, right?” Lu Han asks as he walks out of the elevator, clearly trying to go back to safe grounds. “I saw you at the gym, that one time.”

“I do yoga,” Jongdae says without really being aware of his mouth moving and sound coming out because his brain is still stuck on Lu Han saying all those nice things when he was obviously needing to hear something nice and what the actual fuck is his life right now, that’s what he’d like to know.

He’s so focused on convincing his brain that it really did just happen, the whole conversation, that he misses Lu Han laughing for the first time ever.

“Must be a vital part of your badass aesthetic, I imagine,” Lu Han says, opening the door to his place, but Jongdae’s brain is finally letting it all sink in so he doesn’t retaliate.

The cat is waiting for them by the door, because he always knows when Lu Han’s nearby, and he meows at Jongdae politely as if to acknowledge him. Lu Han leans down to scratch his head and he walks away straight after that, presumably to go back to his usual busy schedule of sleeping on top of Lu Han’s notes and getting hair on everything he owns. Lu Han watches him fondly, and Jongdae’s had enough of him being soft and ridiculous, so he pushes him gently against the wall and kisses him.

Lu Han kisses him back softly, cupping his cheek, and Jongdae hasn’t told anyone about all the dreams he’s given up on in a long time, but when Lu Han pulls away and kisses his cheeks without stopping for air not even once, Jongdae considers making an exception.

]]

 

 

Seulgi has a girlfriend. She informs it to the rest of their gang one Tuesday evening when they’re all at her place, pretending to study. Jongdae is actually studying for real because he has an exam coming up and Baekhyun’s using his phone to play some dumb game since his own ran out of battery, so he has no available distractions. Still, he stops writing and looks up, because Seulgi having a girlfriend is big, big news.

Back when they were in their first year and followed Jongdae around everywhere, Jongin and Seulgi had a thing. It was pretty short lived, because they were babies who were very bad at feelings, and Jongdae had been slightly relieved when it had ended because he had enough with Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, he couldn’t afford to befriend another couple. Ever since, it had just been the three of them, single as they could possibly be, minus the occasional fling, so this is definitely a big deal.

It’s not really a surprise though, because anyone with two eyes who’s been around Seulgi lately has seen her throw at least one longing glance at Bae Joohyun. Seulgi can be rather shy, but she’s the kind of person who doesn’t stop working towards her goal until she’s achieved it, so really, they should have seen it coming.

After she’s made her announcement and let Jongin coo at her and ruffle her hair as if she was a little girl, she demands everyone goes back to what they were doing and quietly goes sit by Jongdae’s side.

“Congratulations,” Jongdae smiles at her.

“Thanks,” Seulgi says. She goes quiet, chewing on her cheek like she’s trying to phrase something properly, and Jongdae waits patiently. Seulgi never says anything without thinking it through first, she’s always very careful with her words. She knows very well how much words can hurt, even if whoever’s saying them doesn’t really mean them, they’re still hard to take back. “Are you alright?”

It’s too simple to be what she’d been pondering about, so Jongdae raises an eyebrow at her like he’s waiting for the rest of her question.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he says when Seulgi keeps staring at him like she’s got nothing to add. “I mean, I’m kind of stressed out because I have this exam, and I’m kind of hurt I only found out about you talking to Joohyun now that you’re already basically married, but-”

“You know what I mean,” Seulgi interrupts him. “I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want to -- I don’t know, it felt out of place to be telling you about those things when you’re still working through your own stuff.”

“My own stuff?” Jongdae asks, sitting up straighter in his chair. Seulgi looks at him, and then looks at him some more, and Jongdae can’t keep pretending he doesn’t understand her. “I don’t get why everyone’s so obsessed with the Lu Han thing, but it’s not something I’m working through, god. We weren’t even dating, how pathetic do you all think I am to be pining after someone like that?”

It’s a bit harsher than he intended, and definitely a lot louder, and now Baekhyun has stopped playing on his phone and Jongin looks up from his computer and Jongdae really didn’t mean that. Lu Han was worth pining after, Lu Han was nice to him and great in bed and he listened to Jongdae and laughed at all his jokes.

Lu Han never made fun of his dreams. Lu Han left, and Jongdae has been pretending not to care for so long, but maybe it’s just so he doesn’t have to face the fact that he never even tried to ask him to stay. Jongdae misses Lu Han, he misses him so much he might be going a little insane, judging from how long he’s spent talking to his cat lately.

“Jongdae,” a gentle voice says, bringing him back to reality. “You okay?” Seulgi says quietly, putting her hand over Jongdae’s.

“Huh,” Jongdae says, staring off into the distance. “Maybe I’m not.”

“Took you long enough to notice,” Baekhyun says helpfully, but he’s got concern in his eyes and Jongdae doesn’t have it in him to get offended, not when he’s got an epiphany to process.

Maybe he actually /liked/ Lu Han. Maybe they didn’t have to say they were dating to be building something real, way bigger than fuckbuddies.

Seulgi squeezes his hand, and Jongdae lets out a breath.

“Admitting is half the battle,” Jongin says from behind his laptop, and Jongdae closes his eyes and nods. He’s not entirely sure of what exactly he’s admitted just yet, but there’s probably no way of going back now that he’s figured out there were things to admit. He just hopes they’re not as dramatic as they feel right now -- it’s not like he was in love with Lu Han, right?

 

 

[[

Turns out yoga has its perks, and they’re in bed after Jongdae’s proven to Lu Han just how flexible he can be when it happens. Jongdae doesn’t mean to, but Lu Han’s been annoyed the entire afternoon because he’s got a melody stuck in his head and he can’t remember the name of the song, so Jongdae sings a couple of lines to see if they’re talking about the same song.

“Dude,” Lu Han says, rolling over so he’s lying on his side and can get a better look at Jongdae. “Dude, do that again.”

“Do what?” Jongdae laughs, picking at his sheets. Lu Han has such nice sheets - he’s got a nice everything, and Jongdae had no idea sport scholarships were so generous but he’s getting the idea that Lu Han must be a hell of a player to afford living like this.

“Sing,” Lu Han says, eyes sparkling like he’s expecting some precious gift. Jongdae laughs again, because he’s so ridiculous sometimes it’s as if he didn’t know by now he doesn’t need to sweet talk him to get laid.

“I don’t sing,” Jongdae says, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. It’s way past midnight and he has classes tomorrow and Lu Han is still looking at him like hearing those two verses meant something to him or whatever, and Jongdae honestly can’t deal with that right now.

“It sounded like you knew what you were doing,” Lu Han comments. “But that’s not the point, it just sounded so nice, please?”

Jongdae has no clue when he became weak for Lu Han batting his eyelashes at him, but apparently he can’t resist it not even for a second.

So he sings, and Lu Han watches him, and Jongdae hasn’t done this in a very long time but even in his best days when he still sang in choir and had people clapping for him -- he never felt this way, like he was making someone feel things with his voice. Lu Han’s eyes are so expressive, and it’s easy to inject emotion into his song when he’s feeling so many different things right now.

“Woah,” Lu Han says, looking truly impressed. “You have an amazing voice, didn’t you ever want to like, do something with it besides whining all the time?”

“I don’t whine,” Jongdae whines, and Lu Han laughs softly at him. “You need to have more than a good voice to make it in the industry or whatever, I guess,” Jongdae says, trying to sound unaffected and not like he’s quoting his mother word by word.

“I didn’t say a good voice, I said an amazing voice,” Lu Han points out. “And you’ve definitely got the face for it, too,” he adds fondly, leaning closer to graze his fingers against Jongdae’s cheek. It’s such a gentle move, it makes him feel fragile all of a sudden. “I would’ve been your biggest fan, obviously.”

Jongdae laughs, but the conversation is making him nervous and it comes out a little shaky.

“I wanted to, for a while,” he says, looking at the ceiling. Lu Han’s hand drops from his face but it stays near, touching his shoulder. “My mom said it was dumb, and that I’d starve. I was gonna rebel and just do it anyway you know, go audition somewhere, and I told my music teacher about it and he laughed for so long, I can still hear it sometimes.”

It’s so silly how it still kinda hurts, but he can’t help it. He can feel Lu Han’s eyes on him, but he can’t look back, he doesn’t wanna see the pity.

“That sucks,” Lu Han says when it’s clear Jongdae isn’t gonna keep on talking. “Your teacher sucked, but he was clearly an idiot, I bet he was just jealous.” Jongdae isn’t looking at him but he hopes he can feel him rolling his eyes. “I’m serious, you’ve got talent, I bet he’d been rejected when he’d auditioned himself and that’s why he was so keen on destroying your dreams.”

“I don’t really care why he did it, I just -- I mean, he certainly did destroy them, so it doesn’t matter anymore,” Jongdae shrugs, tilting his head so he can look at Lu Han’s face. He didn’t expect him to be looking back, and making eye contact feels ridiculously more intimate than it should. “I’m too old to be an idol now anyway.”

“You can still sing,” Lu Han says, running his hand down Jongdae’s arm until he finds his hand. They’ve been holding hands a lot lately, and Jongdae isn’t entirely against it. “You could go somewhere else, where your parents’ words can’t reach you -- and you could sing, start simple and see what happens.”

It sounds ideal but also ridiculous, and Jongdae can’t help but laugh.

“Sure, I’ll just travel the world busking and see where that gets me,” he says, letting go of Lu Han’s hand to rub his own against his eyes. It’s late, and he doesn’t think he wants to have this conversation anymore.

“That’s not a terrible idea, but I meant like, go sing in bars or something, it doesn’t need to be on the street,” Lu Han frowns, sitting up on the bed. “Or you could just stay here and become an engineer or whatever and get a stable job, I guess.”

“You make it sound like that’s the craziest one of the options,” Jongdae says. He wants to be mad, or annoyed, but the truth is even if Lu Han isn’t the first person to tell him to chase his dreams despite everything, he finds it even more touching coming from him for some reason.

“It is,” Lu Han’s voice goes quiet, and he lies down again, scooting up closer to Jongdae. “It’s crazy that someone like you would give up on something when you have the talent for it, and you want it, and you’re so good at being your own responsible person, you could totally do it.”

Jongdae’s too sleepy and Lu Han isn’t making too much sense anymore, but he puts an arm around him and brings him closer and lets him keep on talking because it’s actually quite nice to hear someone have so much faith in him, even if it’s undeserved.

“There’s one bad side to moving across the world to try your luck with the singing thing,” Lu Han whispers after he’s been quiet for a while, when Jongdae’s almost entirely asleep. “Like, obviously we could never be what we are if we were far away… right?”

Jongdae yawns, rolling over so he can hide his face in Lu Han’s shoulder and breathe him in a little.

“Obviously,” he nods, already drifting into a dream in which he’s a part of some popular boyband and he doesn’t have to do homework ever. “Can’t have a long distance fuckbuds relationship.”

Lu Han doesn’t say anything back, but Jongdae doesn’t even notice it because he’s already busy dreaming about being on his first concert, with Lu Han waiting for him backstage.

]]

 

 

After that tiny breakdown in front of his friends, Jongdae sort of expected one of them, possibly Minseok or Baekhyun, to come talk to him about it. He didn’t think it’d be Yixing at all, but here he is, knocking on his door with a serious expression on his face.

“Hey man,” Jongdae says, yawning and stretching his arms over his head as he moves to let him in. Baekhyun has a final in four hours and he was sitting in the exact same position as he is right now when Jongdae went to bed last night. It was a worrying sight to wake up to, but he’s seen him drink water in the half hour he’s been awake for so at least Jongdae knows he’s alive and he’s sadly too aware of how much college can fuck people up at times like these, so he’s just letting him be. “What are you doing here so early?”

“I wasn’t sure what time you had classes,” Yixing says, and though Jongdae doesn’t know him all that well, he can tell something’s off with him. “Do you think we could go somewhere to talk for a moment?”

Even Baekhyun looks up from his computer when he hears that, which proves to Jongdae that something really does feel super weird in the atmosphere.

“Uh, sure,” Jongdae says, looking around for his shoes. He’s not sure what Yixing could possibly need to talk to him about, but it doesn’t sound good.

He lets him lead the way, which is a mistake because Yixing is usually thinking of something entirely unrelated to his surroundings or his feet and where they should be taking him, so Jongdae eventually grabs his arm and turns them back around so they can head to the cafe. He hasn’t had breakfast yet, so he might as well get some coffee out of this tense situation.

Once they’re sat at a table, Jongdae looks expectantly at Yixing putting sugar in his tea for longer than normal, until he finally talks.

“Minseok said you had been thinking about Luge,” Yixing says at last, putting his hands around his cup. "That you had, uh. Realized some stuff."

Jongdae lets out a breathy, nervous laughter. Yixing is Lu Han's best friend, that much he's always known, and it's starting to become clear that everyone but him knew something was going on between them, bigger than what Jongdae was aware of at least. So Yixing probably knew too, and Jongdae can't help but wonder if he told Lu Han about it, like all his friends did with him.

"Yeah, I guess that's one way to put it," Jongdae says, but Yixing isn't smiling back at him and it makes him uneasy. "Took me a while, I know, everyone seemed to know what was going on but us."

At this, Yixing doesn't just not laugh along, he straight up frowns. It's concerning to say the least, because Yixing is so easy going the only times Jongdae's seen him frown were when he was deep in thought or something like it.

"Listen, I really like you but I have to say this to you, as Lu Han's best friend," Yixing speaks while he stares at his fingers, tightly grabbing his cup of tea. "I think you two were really good for each other, and it would be great if you finally saw that too and things worked out for this, uh. Relationship sort of thing you've built. But if you're gonna attempt talking to Luge, you should know that things -- You're wrong, about some things."

Huh. Yixing's tone isn't making Jongdae too eager to hear what he says next.

"Lu Han -- you broke his heart, a little. Well, a lot, actually," Yixing says, wincing at his own words. "It was hard on him because he thought things were going somewhere and then you kept going back to square one but I think it still caught him off guard when you just, let him leave like that."

Jongdae stopped listening after the breaking Lu Han's heart bit, suddenly needing to step outside for a second, but there's probably not enough air in the world to make him feel any better about this. It makes sense, because if Lu Han also thought they were something serious, then he can see how it could have been upsetting to have Jongdae constantly treat their relationship like it was nothing. It's logical, but Jongdae hadn't ever even considered the possibility that he might have any power over Lu Han's feelings, definitely not enough to -- break his heart, Yixing had said. He'd broken Lu Han's heart. Lu Han, who had been so good to him even if it had taken him a while to figure out that's what he was trying to do. He'd been a dick, clearly, because though neither of them had ever said anything, the truth is Jongdae had always assumed it would be impossible for them to be anything based on what? Lu Han's reputation? Pretty ironic, given how Jongdae's own reputation wasn't so stellar either at the time.

The more he thinks about it, the more he looks into his heart and truly thinks about all of this, the more obvious the truth becomes. To break someone's heart, you need some deep feelings. And Jongdae's obliviousness had made it impossible for him to really understand it until now, but now he can't deny it any longer. Lu Han wasn't the only one with deep feelings -- Jongdae had fallen stupidly, ridiculously in love.

"Fuck," he says under his breath, suddenly remembering he's sitting with Yixing in a public place having his silent epiphany. Yixing is just quietly staring at him, like he can see the wheels turning in his head, bringing him to the light.

"Yeah," Yixing nods. "I'm sorry, I know this probably sucks for you too, now that you're aware of it. But I wanted to talk to you so you know there's a big chance Lu Han won't pick up the phone if you call him, and you deserved to understand why."

Jongdae can only bring himself to nod, because his entire body is trembling right now and he doesn't dare try to speak.

"Also, I had to let you know if you break his heart again I'm gonna be very disappointed and probably mad," Yixing adds, and Jongdae looks up, but Yixing is giving him a tiny smile, like he knows that's not gonna happen. Probably. At least that's how he's choosing to interpret it.

"I'm not planning on it," Jongdae says, offering a weak smile in return like he isn't absolutely terrified of even trying to talk to Lu Han again now that he's realized the actual magnitude of things. He doesn't ever wanna hurt Lu Han again, but realizing he did it once without noticing is slightly scary.

However, realizing he's kind of madly in love with him is motivation enough for him to try and be brave. And if Lu Han won't pick up his phone, then that's fine, Jongdae's always been resourceful. He's also slightly broke, but that's fine, it only takes a week to get to Newcastle in the cheapest possible way -- he just needs to find a big balloon.

 

 

 

In the end, it turns out though balloons seemed to be the cheapest means of transportation, getting a hot air balloon up in the sky with enough supplies for him to survive for a whole week is kinda expensive. Besides, it's insane, as Baekhyun kindly informs him before closing his laptop to prevent him looking up any more information on the subject.

Flights are expensive, especially on such short notice, but not as expensive as Jongdae had expected. Baekhyun gifts him some of his free miles from back when his parents were less disappointed in him and took him on vacations to fun places, and before Jongdae knows it, he's holding a plane ticket to the other side of the world just because his heart feels like it's missing a piece.

It feels crazy to be even considering this, because what's Jongdae gonna do once he's actually there? Baekhyun clicks his tongue and shakes his head at him repeatedly until he gets what he's trying to tell him. He knows what he's gonna do. He's always known, because Lu Han told him.

He's gonna sing. He's talked to his advisors because it's the end of the semester but he still has stuff to hand in and he needs to talk them into letting him do it all online, and though none of them fully understood Jongdae's sudden need to leave the country, they're supportive. His favorite one even suggests he might apply for some sort of exchange program that his scholarship offers for brilliant students, and Jongdae feels touched and pretty tempted to grab this chance at having something a little more solid under his feet.

Minseok takes him shopping so they can get a nice traveling cabinet for the cat, and Jongdae is scared he's gonna get another "break his heart and I'll kill you" speech, but Minseok doesn't say a word.

"Junmyeon put in a good word for you with the committee, for the exchange scholarship thing?" Minseok says as they pay for the unnecessary amount of cat toys they got. "I think, I'm, uh. Not sure, I was distracted when he told me. In all fairness, he was the one distracting me."

"Huh," Jongdae says, quite surprised at Junmyeon actually supporting him on his most out of the box plan. "So that's happening, you two?"

"Us three," Minseok laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "I mean, kinda. You probably don't wanna know the details."

"You're right," Jongdae shakes his head, but fondly. "I'm happy you're happy though."

"I am, it's been fun and Sehun and Junmyeon are really getting along," Minseok shrugs his shoulders. "I hope things work out for you, too. For you and for Han, both."

Jongdae lets out a breath, a bit shaky. It feels so big, this thing he's about to do, and it's scary but it feels like the obvious thing to do, because everyone else is getting their stuff together and maybe it's a sign that he should too.

"I do too," Jongdae nods, mentally crossing his fingers.

 

 

It's a long flight and it gives Jongdae enough time to regret his choices, then convince himself they're the right ones again, and repeat that sequence at least five times. By the time he lands in Newcastle, he's come to accept the fact that he's too far from home to change his mind. If his plan crashes and burns, he'll just fly home and go back to his life and pretend nothing happened and also maybe avoid Yixing forever.

It's not a particularly elaborate plan, he's just gonna go see Lu Han and see what happens. Minseok told him where Lu Han's uni is, and that around now, he'd be at a match. Jongdae finds the crappy hotel he'd booked easily, and it isn't exactly a challenge to find the field in the university campus or to pass as a student to sneak In. Newcastle is small, but not small enough that everyone expects to know everyone, so no one notices him sitting in a corner.

For a uni match, it's quite crowded, and Jongdae can feel football is much more important here than back at home. He spots Lu Han on the field, and it feels - it feels like he's exactly where he should be. Even seeing his face from afar makes Jongdae feel more at peace than he has felt in months, and he can't believe how dumb he's been, thinking he had ever not been in love when it's so obvious that the way his heart is racing is because it's trying to climb out of him so it can get closer to Lu Han.

He hears people around him mentioning him when he does something that looks impressive even to Jongdae, who doesn't have a clue of what's going on in any sport ever. It sounds like they're talking of him fondly, at least, and Jongdae, again, realizes things.

The first thing he realizes is he never saw Lu Han play, or properly asked him about it. If they truly were almost dating, then Jongdae was a terrible almost boyfriend.

The second things he realizes is Lu Han's team seems to have won, because everyone around him is cheering and all the players are hugging Lu Han, and Jongdae never actually thought of how he'd approach him. His plan is very flawed, evidently.

He watches the crowd start to leave, and figures the players have to exit through somewhere but he’s not courageous enough to ask some random British stranger for directions. He should’ve dragged Minseok along with him, he’s been to a billion football matches in his life so he would’ve known. It’s just a college sports field though, and some wandering around the exit doors leads him to the conclusion that players will probably exit through the same doors the crowd did. After a little while he sees the players from what he supposes is the opposite team leaving through those doors to go get on their buses, and he figures everyone else will also come out this way.

So he sits outside, finding a nice little bench that allows him to control the exits, and he waits. While he waits, he thinks, and then he thinks some more, and he’s got a whole speech planned out but then there’s noises coming from the door and suddenly they’re all coming out and between all of them, there’s Lu Han. He just saw Lu Han from a distance, but it didn’t compare to seeing Lu Han now, so close, laughing with a bunch of strangers.

When he told Jongdae he had received an offer from a college in England, Lu Han had looked so grim Jongdae had thought maybe he didn’t actually want to go. Now he wonders if maybe it was just that Lu Han was upset he wouldn’t ask him to stay, or whatever else it was that he expected from Jongdae that Jongdae had obviously failed to do. Either way, it looks like Lu Han doesn’t exactly hate being here now, and Jongdae showing up from nowhere would probably ruin everything.

He’s standing up as quietly as he can, hoping to leave without bringing any attention to himself, but it’s never as easy as that. It’s never been easy at all with Lu Han, because there’s always this thing that keeps them connected, like they can sense each other even from a distance. It’s how they got into this mess, being unable to maintain any sort of distance between them, so it isn’t very surprising when Jongdae looks up and finds Lu Han staring right back at him, an indecipherable look on his face.

The force of his stare nearly physically sends Jongdae back down on the bench, and they don’t break eye contact even when Lu Han waves his teammates goodbye, not until he’s close enough Jongdae could reach him if he stretched out his legs (which is saying a lot, since he doesn’t have the longest legs around).

“What the fuck,” Lu Han says flatly, and Jongdae gets it, but it’s rather anticlimactic to be greeted so harshly.

“Surprise?” he replies with a weak smile that disappears quickly when Lu Han doesn’t smile back.

“You’re far from home,” Lu Han says and it’s softer already, which helps Jongdae find his voice again instead of figuring out ways to run from this conversation.

“I wanted to see what the big deal with this place was,” Jongdae shrugs. Lu Han isn’t frowning anymore, and Jongdae takes it as a good sign. “Think you could show me around?”

It’s obvious he’s here to talk about something, but asking out loud if they can go talk somewhere sounds terrifying. This is better. He can pretend he’s visiting a friend, take a tour of the city, and maybe he’ll eventually stop feeling like his knees will give in if he looks at Lu Han for more than two seconds.

He can feel Lu Han eyeing him carefully like he’s trying to read him, figure him out, understand what on Earth he’s doing here.

“There’s a nice park nearby,” Lu Han says at last, and Jongdae nods. He’s a little afraid of trying to stand up again because his knees are literally shaking, but he gives it a shot and surprisingly manages to stay on his feet.

“Lead the way,” he says, and Lu Han almost smiles. Jongdae thinks it counts as a full win, under these circumstances.

It’s a quiet but luckily short walk to a very big, very beautiful park. There’s a sign outside that informs Jongdae they’re at Leazes Park, and Lu Han leads him through some very neatly organized trees until they find themselves right next to a very nice, very artificial lake. Lu Han stops walking, putting his hands in his pockets, and he seems expectant.

Jongdae stares at the water, how very still it is, and thinks about drowning for a second but decides that would probably be worse than trying to have a conversation with the guy he accidentally fell in love with, probably being the key word.

“I -- I’m sorry,” he starts, and it’s not a great opener clearly because Lu Han seems startled, and Jongdae can’t help but look back when he feels him looking up at him and it’s a big mistake, because Lu Han is intensely beautiful and Jongdae /loves/ him. Fuck. He’s more fucked than he thought. “To be honest, I pictured this differently. I thought I could do something stupid like in the movies and show up here and sweep you off your feet, you know, tell you I never realized what was happening until it was too late and beg for forgiveness --”

“That all sounds pretty good, actually,” Lu Han interrupts him, eyes sparkling like he knows Jongdae’s suffering and he’s kinda enjoying it. The tension seems to have dissipated in him, and Jongdae can only hope it’s because he’s not terribly mad at realizing what Jongdae’s here for.

“But it wouldn’t be enough,” Jongdae mutters, looking back at the floor because it feels like he’s staring into the sun if he looks at him for too long. “You know, when it all started, I was sure I’d be the one to catch stupid feelings and you’d be the one who’d end up being a dick.”

“I’m so glad you came all the way from Korea to tell me that, honestly,” Lu Han says, and he can only stay serious for another half second but then he’s cracking up. “God, you’re so dumb sometimes, I wish it wasn’t so endearing.”

“So glad I came all the way here to get insulted,” Jongdae bites back, but he casts a sideway glance at him and can’t help but grin when he catches Lu Han smiling at him. “Kinda missed it, actually.”

“It’s crazy, the things one can get used to,” Lu Han solemnly replies, and Jongdae kicks him lightly on the shin. “So you think I caught stupid feelings and you were a dick about it?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” Jongdae says as earnestly as he can. “But after realizing I’ve been so oblivious to everything, I’m not even sure I got that right, so if you wanted to give me your side of the story I’d appreciate it.”

“Didn’t Yixing tell you?” Lu Han says, arching his eyebrows when Jongdae shakes his head. “Huh. Well. I don’t know what to tell you, to be honest, because I always thought we were on the same page even if we weren’t being open about it, which was my mistake, I guess.”

“Can I ask you questions then? Just to be sure we are on the same page now,” Jongdae asks. “Like, why did you -- at the beginning, why did you keep trying to talk to me?”

“I liked you,” Lu Han says it in such a simple, forward manner, Jongdae feels like he should sit down right now. “I’d seen you around, and I’d always thought you were handsome, and then we were in class together and you seemed very smart and like -- you were so good to everyone, all of my friends loved you and they wouldn’t stop talking about how kind and generous you were. I wanted to see for myself.”

“But you were mean to me,” Jongdae whines, because he can’t help himself, but it makes Lu Han giggle so he figures it’s fine.

“Yeah well, when I actually got to know you I realized I really liked you right away, and I -- I’ve been told I don’t have the best flirting techniques, though they seem to work,” Lu Han shrugs, looking ridiculously smug about it. Jongdae would tell him he’s pretty sure any techniques at all would have worked on him, but that wouldn’t wipe the smugness of his face, surely. “And you were so easy to banter with, I couldn’t stop once I started.”

“I thought you hated me at first,” Jongdae admits. “Then I kind of figured you were trying to get into my pants.”

“I was,” Lu Han nods, and Jongdae can’t believe he’s witnessing his cheeks turning red but it’s as clear as day, Lu Han is blushing. “But also I wanted you to get to know me, because I felt I knew so much about you already and I liked everything I’d heard, and it felt like you’d only heard bad stuff about me so I wanted you to see I wasn’t all that terrible.”

“But you were,” Jongdae says, with no heat to it, but Lu Han winces.

“Was I?”

“I just traveled across oceans to see you, I wouldn’t say I found you terrible,” Jongdae clarifies, rolling his eyes a little.

“I was worried it wasn’t working because you kept scowling at me, and then -- well, I guess I might confess now, since you’re here. I did a very bad thing, even if it had good consequences,” Lu Han says, staring right ahead at the lake as he breathes in as if to gather courage.

“You pinched my tire,” Jongdae helpfully supplies, leaving Lu Han with his mouth hanging open.

“You knew,” he states, and Jongdae shrugs his shoulders.

“That threw me off, to be honest,” he says. “I mean, as a flirting technique it was kind of invasive, I think.”

“It was a very bad idea but I was desperate because you wouldn’t hang out with me anywhere that wasn’t the dining hall, and I hated that dining hall and I -- I wanted to see more of you. When I saw you at the gym, it hit me that I could wait for you and give you a ride, but you’d never accept one, so -- I know, there’s no reasonable explanation, I don’t know what got into me. I just liked you a lot, you know,” Lu Han says, sounding sheepish.

Jongdae is mostly stuck on the past tense he’s using every time he talks about liking him, but he can’t back out now, not when he came all this way. If he’s gonna get his heart broken, he better be sure that’s what’s going on here, because clearly he’s not very good at reading Lu Han.

“Wait, if you’re here, where’s my cat?” Lu Han says out of nowhere, and Jongdae loves him such an incredible amount he’s ready to throw all caution to the wind and just kiss his gorgeous concerned face.

“In my hotel room, don’t worry,” Jongdae brushes him off, watching Lu Han breathe out in relief. “Go back to the story, you ruined my bike, and then what?”

“Then it kind of felt like we’d started dating,” Lu Han says looking uncertain. Jongdae’s shoulders fall, because he can’t believe he really had been so stupid all the way since the start, failing to see the obvious even when Lu Han probably had it written all over his face the whole time. “I mean, it was a little weird because we’d do all this dating stuff and I’d show up whenever you had a five minute break just to kiss you and you’d crack a joke about us being fuck buddies and I was, uh. Confused. But that’s on me too, because I was scared that was all you’d want us to be, and people had told me that you weren’t too much into relationships after your ex so I didn’t want to pressure you into anything.”

It’s funny how the sweeter Lu Han proves to be, the more eager Jongdae is to just die right there and then. Finding out he was the dick in the relationship has been the biggest plot twist of his life, and it becomes more evident with every second that goes by, making him feel dumber.

“I thought you weren’t into relationships, so I never even thought it was a possibility, even though everyone kept teasing me about it,” he offers weakly, staring at his shoes.

“I know,” Lu Han shrugs his shoulders like it makes sense, like there’s a universe in which him bending over backwards for Jongdae’s happiness and never getting acknowledged is something that can just be accepted and moved on from. “Again, I could’ve said something and I never did, so don’t kick yourself too hard for this.”

“But I should kick myself at least somewhat, right?” Jongdae says, with a light chuckle that Lu Han echoes.

“You did break my heart a little, so yeah, but just a little,” Lu Han says. “Mostly at the end, when I got the offer to come play here, I thought you’d -- I don’t know, I thought I wanted you to ask me to stay but I would’ve hated that, because my future is here, obviously, and I can do what I love and what I’m good at and it would’ve been selfish. You were kind of not great, but you were never selfish like that, and I like that about you, but I wanted -- I wanted you to care, at least. I wanted you to come with me, but that was a bit too much to ask, so at the very least I kept hoping you’d be sad about it, or like, realize that we had something that was about to get crushed by the distance if we didn’t take it seriously, and you just --”

“I just made a terrible joke about British people and let you walk away, yeah,” Jongdae says, slightly scared now that they’re done with their spontaneous recap of their whole relationship, because all there’s left now is him doing what he came to do. “I was stupid and I was scared, I think, because I’d never been in love before and I never expected it to happen like that, so I didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late. I should’ve said something but it took me too long to realize that now.”

“It isn’t too late, I mean, you’re here now,” Lu Han says, and this time it’s his voice that sounds shaky. “If you wanted to say something, I’d be willing to listen.”

“I’m sorry I broke your heart,” Jongdae starts. “I’m sorry I messed with you like that, even if I wasn’t aware I was doing it. I’m sorry you caught stupid feelings for someone like me, but -- I fell in love, and you left but it never went away, because I don’t think it ever will, even if you tell me to go home now and never bother you again, I’m always gonna love you, I think. It feels like a part of me that was always there but I just hadn’t ever seen it, and now that I’m aware of it I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Like when someone makes you think about your breathing,” Lu Han intervenes, but Jongdae chooses to ignore him.

“You were also right about a lot of other things, like what you said about me and my dreams -- I needed a little push. And I’m gonna need a constant little push, because my dreams have been crushed far too many times before, but knowing you don’t think they’re childish fantasies was enough to get me to start taking them seriously.”

Lu Han looks at him like he’s waiting for him to continue, but Jongdae isn’t sure he knows what else he can say.

“Okay,” Lu Han nods. “And what now, then. What do you want now, Jongdae? If you could choose what happens now, how would the story go?”

“You’d say you love me too and I’d figure out a way to stay here,” Jongdae says simply. It’s everything he needs, the rest they could figure out later, if Lu Han would let him stick around.

“You want to stay?” Lu Han asks, taking his hands out of his pockets and rubbing them over his eyes. He looks tired, but there’s something in the way he’s looking at Jongdae that gives him a tiny bit of hope. “And you have no idea how you’d do that, but you’d be willing to just, stick around and try to make it work.”

“Something will come up,” Jongdae affirms. It feels like this is the most defining moment of his entire life, if he can convince Lu Han that it isn’t absolutely crazy for him to stay, then they can discuss the bit where he hasn’t admitted to loving him yet, but he hasn’t denied it either. “I could sing, like you always said, and find something to do while that takes off.”

Lu Han laughs a bit incredulously, looking at Jongdae again in that way of his, like he’s double checking he’s really there.

“Have I told you you’re an idiot already, because you really are,” he says, still laughing, and Jongdae smiles tentatively back at him.

“An idiot you still kinda like?” he asks, taking a step closer just in case Lu Han wants to say no and push him into the lake for daring to ask something so stupid.

“An idiot I’m in love with, you dumbass,” Lu Han says. He’s still chuckling when he closes the distance, but it works somehow, because kissing Lu Han has always felt easy, like coming home.

 

 

 

Jongdae doesn't see Lu Han before getting on stage, but he knows he'll find him when he goes back to his table. Training keeps him very busy this time of year, so he's late sometimes, but he's always there to at least catch a bit of Jongdae's set.

Predictably, Jongdae finds him waiting at his table when he's done singing, still in full gear. He's got his phone out, and when he sees Jongdae he turns it around so he can see he's video calling Baekhyun. Jongdae greets his best friend and promises to call him soon though they are literally always texting because distance means nothing when you've been joined at the hip since birth.

“Hey,” Lu Han says when he’s finished the video call.

“Hey,” Jongdae says, leaning across the table to kiss him. “How was training?”

“Terrible, I’m truly considering breaking my leg or something just so I don’t have to hear coach yelling so many times a week,” Lu Han rolls his eyes, but he’s relaxed in his chair, reaching out to grab Jongdae’s hand and play with his fingers, and his current happiness is too intense not to shine through his attempt to play it cool. “But I was walking down the street and I thought I heard someone butchering one of my favorite Bruno Mars songs, so I had to come in, you see.”

“I see,” Jongdae nods, trying to keep a serious face.

“But you have such a pretty face I’m willing to forgive you,” Lu Han says, smiling his worst, sweetest smile as he leans closer to touch Jongdae’s cheek with his knuckles very lightly. “I’m kidding, you were wonderful and to be honest I only missed like the first five seconds because I ran here as soon as I could.”

Sometimes, Lu Han does the kind of things that would make Baekhyun do his worst impression of a whip sound and Jongdae remembers he’s been like this since day one, he was just too blind to notice. It makes him feel very light, like he could just float if he concentrated enough, because love fills him up and lifts him in ways he couldn’t have imagined.

“We should go soon because I have an early class, but I could buy you a drink before that,” Jongdae offers, checking his watch. Pulling some strings (a lot of them) helped him score a couple of months on a programme to study abroad, and at this point he’s so close to graduating he thinks he might as well just do that and try to get an internship so he can come back and stay for real. Singing in bars and getting little spots as a regular here and there has been amazing and it’s his actual dream, but he doesn’t think he can live off scholarships for much longer, so maybe having something on the side to keep him afloat while he tries to break into the industry wouldn’t hurt.

Lu Han has, as always, the nicest flat he’s ever seen, just outside campus. Being the star player has a lot of perks, and one of them is that no one batted an eyelash when he announced some random boy who had just showed up would be moving in with him, so at least Jongdae doesn’t have to worry about rent for the time being.

The cat is the happiest of them all now that he can sleep right on Lu Han’s stomach as he was used to doing, but also sometimes he gets to nap on Jongdae’s lap, which is a newer habit he’s acquired.

“No, that’s alright, let’s just go home,” Lu Han says, getting to his feet. “I’m dying to get out of these clothes and also if someone realizes I came straight from training they’re gonna kick me out for being disgusting.”

“Alright,” Jongdae agrees, following him outside the bar. Grabbing Lu Han’s hand when he reaches out for it comes so naturally by now, he doesn’t even have to look to know he’s gonna find it waiting for him. Lu Han pulls him closer, because it’s getting kinda cold, and also Jongdae is starting to suspect Lu Han just likes having him as near to him as he can. “Aren’t you worried someone will see the star player of the city’s best team holding hands with some nobody who sings covers on Wednesday nights?”

“I’m pretty sure everyone but you knows you’re out of my league,” Lu Han snorts, squeezing his hand. “At least now I know for sure you’re so oblivious you’re probably never gonna notice that.”

Jongdae swats at his shoulder lightly, immediately leaning in to press a kiss right on the same spot.

“I’ve secretly known all along, but it sadly didn’t stop me from falling in love,” he says, smirking at Lu Han as soon as he rolls his eyes.

“Lucky me,” Lu Han says sarcastically, but he’s smiling, and Jongdae goes on tip toes to press a kiss to his lips. “Lucky me indeed,” Lu Han repeats, but it’s just cheesy and earnest now, and Jongdae’s smile grows impossibly wide.

**Author's Note:**

> im @lubaekchens on twitter


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